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DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> English accent... what's the deal ?
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09/10/2011 10:10:25 PM · #1
No matter how stupid the statement, if it's heard in an English accent it sounds plausible and even intelligent and classy. What's up with that?
09/10/2011 10:21:36 PM · #2
"English" accent isn't specific enough ... for example, I think the same phrase said in a Cockney accent might inspire the opposite effect, as would one based on some of the accents common to the American South, which are probably the cosest we have to remnants of the accents of the original English colonists ...
09/10/2011 10:22:09 PM · #3
Well, I bloody well don't know!
09/10/2011 10:41:35 PM · #4
I'm considering adopting an English (not Cockney) accent. To boost my credibility.
09/10/2011 10:54:11 PM · #5
Originally posted by Strikeslip:

I'm considering adopting an English (not Cockney) accent. To boost my credibility.


simple rule: canada is said canader, butter is said butta and united states is said colonies ...
09/10/2011 11:40:03 PM · #6
Originally posted by Strikeslip:

I'm considering adopting an English (not Cockney) accent. To boost my credibility.


Slippy, THINK! Your current life goal is chainsaw sculpture, right? Do you honestly think effecting a plummy accent is gonna endear you to the class of people that matters in the rough-hewn world of treestump carving? Fageddabout David Niven and Michael Caine, start thinking John Goodman or something. Suits you better anyway. Besides, it's impossible to master a nasal tone when you're wearing noseplugs. THINK about it, man!

R.
09/10/2011 11:47:21 PM · #7
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by Strikeslip:

I'm considering adopting an English (not Cockney) accent. To boost my credibility.


Slippy, THINK! Your current life goal is chainsaw sculpture, right? Do you honestly think effecting a plummy accent is gonna endear you to the class of people that matters in the rough-hewn world of treestump carving? Fageddabout David Niven and Michael Caine, start thinking John Goodman or something. Suits you better anyway. Besides, it's impossible to master a nasal tone when you're wearing noseplugs. THINK about it, man!

R.


HA!
09/11/2011 12:20:28 AM · #8
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by Strikeslip:

I'm considering adopting an English (not Cockney) accent. To boost my credibility.


Slippy, THINK! Your current life goal is chainsaw sculpture, right? Do you honestly think effecting a plummy accent is gonna endear you to the class of people that matters in the rough-hewn world of treestump carving? Fageddabout David Niven and Michael Caine, start thinking John Goodman or something. Suits you better anyway. Besides, it's impossible to master a nasal tone when you're wearing noseplugs. THINK about it, man!

R.


lols, colonies speak...
09/11/2011 12:44:02 AM · #9
Fork on the table. Sheet on the bed. Them English are proper.
09/11/2011 01:06:55 AM · #10
You might want to avoid the Birmingham accent, that accent is notorious for sounding anything but intelligent (apologies to any Brummys on here)
09/11/2011 03:05:08 AM · #11
Originally posted by Jon_H:

You might want to avoid the Birmingham accent, that accent is notorious for sounding anything but intelligent (apologies to any Brummys on here)


Says he from Liverpool. Ladies and Gentlemen, please make sure all your valuables are locked away. ;-)
09/11/2011 03:43:59 AM · #12
A Scottish accent of an appropriately pleasing lady will make me melt and do anything required of me. Stayed there for a summer and worked with a crazy girl I avoided social situations with but enjoyed listening to without listening to her. Never knew what she was saying but appreciated the tones of her rhythmic musings.
09/11/2011 04:07:51 AM · #13
I have a Geordie accent, don't think it boosts my credibility much.
09/11/2011 05:08:21 AM · #14
Why aye - It's called received pronounciation (RP). It doesn't belong to any particular area or class. Having said that, many might say that it sounds a bit 'posh' or affected, and it often is. My Grandad moved to London from Yorkshire and 'cleaned up' his accent to 'get on' in the business world. It's tragic, but it worked in the first half of last century. I believe both T. Blair and G. Brown were Scots. - M. Thatcher got shot of Lincolnshire dialect. I myself have some sort of estuary accent, but it can rapidly revert to RP if I answer the phone or try to enunciate particularly clearly to a non-anglophone. It's a kind of BBC accent. It is not (at least not precisely) that of the huntin' shootin' and fishin' classes.

It's a little hard to say what's up with it. The credibility of RP as opposed to regional dialect, may have something to do with experiments conducted with newsreaders on the radio. Yorkshiremen didn't believe Yorkshiremen reading the news. Why they believed the other fellow is anybody's guess.

One of the upshots of the French Revolution was the establishment of a standard French language. In accordance with the principle of taking power and influence away from the established estates of clergy and nobility and making it accessible to commoners in their newly acquired role as citizens, it was decided that the 'language of power and influence' - effectively that which was spoken by the educated and influential in the Isle de France area around Paris - should be defined and taught as the French language to everyone in French schools. As you live there, you can obviously check this out. I like to think of it a kind of recognition of the social animals we are, i.e. like dogs in a pack, with hard-wired perceptions of status.

Oops - eta that I thought I was replying to Jagar, who lives in France, as opposed to Slippy who - er - lives in Canada. Somebody there should be able to fill you in on the origins of the Académie Française.

Message edited by author 2011-09-11 05:18:28.
09/11/2011 06:09:53 AM · #15
Originally posted by raish:



...One of the upshots of the French Revolution was the establishment of a standard French language. In accordance with the principle of taking power and influence away from the established estates of clergy and nobility and making it accessible to commoners in their newly acquired role as citizens, it was decided that the 'language of power and influence' - effectively that which was spoken by the educated and influential in the Isle de France area around Paris - should be defined and taught as the French language to everyone in French schools...


I read this with a great deal of interest, and having traveled a great deal in France find that while it is true, the colloquialism in the various parts of France was at one time indeed something to behold... almost akin to the differences in from north to south in the USA

If one left Paris and drove south, one would find a great deal of difference in the spoken language, and the cadence differs dramatically once you arrive in "Le Midi"

Thank you for the information raish

Ray
09/11/2011 06:15:34 AM · #16
Originally posted by NiallOTuama:

A Scottish accent of an appropriately pleasing lady will make me melt and do anything required of me. Stayed there for a summer and worked with a crazy girl I avoided social situations with but enjoyed listening to without listening to her. Never knew what she was saying but appreciated the tones of her rhythmic musings.


Yea, but in Scotland we have such regional accents that we don't understand each other half the time. I drive 15 minutes up the road to Falkirk and think they sound funny!
09/11/2011 06:25:27 AM · #17
Originally posted by Covert_Oddity:

Originally posted by NiallOTuama:

A Scottish accent of an appropriately pleasing lady will make me melt and do anything required of me. Stayed there for a summer and worked with a crazy girl I avoided social situations with but enjoyed listening to without listening to her. Never knew what she was saying but appreciated the tones of her rhythmic musings.


Yea, but in Scotland we have such regional accents that we don't understand each other half the time. I drive 15 minutes up the road to Falkirk and think they sound funny!

I was in inverness. Wasn't too bad there. And was she interesting and not crazy I might have listened to her, but as it happens she was crazy and uninteresting.
She hated coffee shops and book shops. So my refuge was a Starbucks in a borders. Safe as houses!
09/11/2011 06:52:49 AM · #18
I live in the south of France in "le Midi" and the accent here is quite strong but i'm originally from Newcastle in the north of England where we probably have one of the strongest accents in the UK, i think the UK has a greater variation of accents than France. The older generation where i live in France still converse with each other in "Occitan" an old dialect very similar to Spanish, its dying out now and even if the younger people understand it none of them speak it.
09/11/2011 07:33:30 AM · #19

As a very good ambassador for the English language would say,

"God bless ya Mary Poppins" (Dick Van Dyke )

All of my US friends think we all sound like that ;-)
Of course most of us do.

09/11/2011 07:45:29 AM · #20
I think 'Occitan' is a reference to the way people south of an East-West line roughly across the middle of France used to say 'yes'. North of the line it was 'oi' and South of the line was 'oc'. Hence the wine region known as Languedoc. Nowadays they say oui (or 'non' in the case of Charles de Gaulle considering Britain's application to join the common market). There were, and to some extent still are, a number of languages in the French hexagon, what with Bretagne and that area around Gallicia, Limoux etc. Land borders are often a bit random and dialects tend to smear across them, so Frenchmen sound more Italian in the Alpes Maritimes and more Spanish in the Pyrenees.
09/11/2011 07:46:34 AM · #21
I much prefer an Irish accent or a Canadian accent myself.
Now to find me a good Irishman or Canadian guy to hang out with.

09/11/2011 07:56:40 AM · #22
Originally posted by NiallOTuama:

Originally posted by Covert_Oddity:

Originally posted by NiallOTuama:

A Scottish accent of an appropriately pleasing lady will make me melt and do anything required of me. Stayed there for a summer and worked with a crazy girl I avoided social situations with but enjoyed listening to without listening to her. Never knew what she was saying but appreciated the tones of her rhythmic musings.


Yea, but in Scotland we have such regional accents that we don't understand each other half the time. I drive 15 minutes up the road to Falkirk and think they sound funny!

I was in inverness. Wasn't too bad there. And was she interesting and not crazy I might have listened to her, but as it happens she was crazy and uninteresting.
She hated coffee shops and book shops. So my refuge was a Starbucks in a borders. Safe as houses!


Funnily enough, in Inverness they have some of the best pronounced English in the whole of the UK. I think it stems from the fact that for many it's a second language to them, with Gaelic being so predominant up there.
09/11/2011 08:51:38 AM · #23
my gps has a womans voice and i trust it to get me to where i need to get to, it must be the english accent.
09/11/2011 09:14:54 AM · #24
Originally posted by ShutterPug:

I much prefer an Irish accent or a Canadian accent myself.
Now to find me a good Irishman or Canadian guy to hang out with.


Ditto on the Irish! I could listen to that accent all day.
09/11/2011 09:38:25 AM · #25
Originally posted by paulbtlw:

Originally posted by Jon_H:

You might want to avoid the Birmingham accent, that accent is notorious for sounding anything but intelligent (apologies to any Brummys on here)


Says he from Liverpool. Ladies and Gentlemen, please make sure all your valuables are locked away. ;-)


13 minutes for a response from a Brummy, im impressed. i was up early robbin' cars, whats your excuse ;)

Brummies

Scousers.

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